Polanski Shocker: Rich People Are Sexual Deviants!

Every Tuesday on VF.com, filmmaker Jamie Johnson offers a glimpse into the secret lives of the super-rich.

Recently, the American public has reacted with anger about a formal letter signed by more than a 100 show-business V.I.P.’s, requesting Polish director Roman Polanksi’s release from a Swiss detention center, where he is currently held and facing extradition to the U.S. on longstanding charges of having illegal sex with a minor in the 1970s.

The news of the impassioned plea from Hollywood sympathizers who fear Polanksi might be handed a prison sentence for a crime he snuck away from more than 30 years ago doesn’t surprise me. Luminaries from the film world have never been known for observing conventional moral guidelines. Their support for Polanksi demonstrates a laissez-faire attitude toward forbidden behavior, and it is precisely this casual approach to sensitive issues of decency that has a great many Americans outraged.Personally, I’m not stunned, or particularly offended, by the clamorous calls for Polanksi’s discharge because I grew up within communities that for generations tolerated sexual conduct that today would be censured. Like celebrities, the rich don’t let worries about maintaining a clear conscience interfere with glamorous living and epicurean pleasures.

For older men, maintaining younger mistresses has long been an accepted practice among the upper class. Often, it has been tolerated so freely that no moral compunction has even been suggested. Mature patricians have become so accustomed to their “arrangements” that fights have erupted following revelations that one blue blood has slept with the teenage daughter of another. Further, prostitution, which is illegal in almost every part of the country, is an institutional component of gilt-edged lives. Recent developments involving Eliot Spitzer exemplify the striking boldness of contemporary sexual attitudes among the rich and mighty.

Of course, none of this begins to match the level of Polanski’s indiscretions. It’s not to say either that Polanksi’s actions are pardonable; they aren’t. The filmmaker acted with a total disregard for the law and any moral code, seriously harming an innocent child in the process. To say that the calls for his release are shocking, though, would be as naÃ¯ve as suggesting that Polanksi is the only prominent person who has behaved reprehensibly and escaped punishment.

News items appearing during the last week reveal that France’s culture minister, a nephew of the former French President Francois Mitterrand and an outspoken defender of Polanski, wrote in an autobiographical book about paying for sex in Thailand.

Unsavory and illegal behavior is out there, especially among the wealthy, just as ever. While that is no justification for dubious tolerance, it should temper reactions to Polanski’s busy advocates and encourage a more honest view of indecency.